Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds Retrospective || Better or Just Bigger?
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- #ultima #ultimaunderworld #lookingglass
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Take a walk with me down memory lane as we review and nostalgize Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds by Looking Glass Studios, the 1993 follow up to Ultima Underworld, the 1992 breakout hit action rpg immersive sim thingie. Paul Neurath, Doug Church, and Warren Spector all return to try and top their previous game, but as the scope grew and the worlds became more fantastical and complex, I had to ask: was it all too much? To find out, inquire within!
0:00 Introduction
0:52 Does It Profit A MAN IF HE GAIN (A LABYRINTH OF) WORLDS BUT LOSE HIS (DARK) SOUL?
3:38 In the Shadow of the Stygian Abyss
6:48 Building A Labyrinth
8:16 Story Time
10:55 If It T' Isn't Broken...
14:51 The Labyrinth of Worlds
18:52 The Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 1: Tarna
22:26 The Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 2: Killorn Keep
23:30 The Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 3: Anodunos
26:56 The Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 4: Talorus
31:08 The Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 5: Pits of Carnage
35:04 The Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 6: Scintillus Academy
41:15 Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 7: Tomb of Praecor Loth
49:40 The Eight Worlds of Wonder, Part 8: Ethereal Void
55:56 We're In the Endgame Now
59:49 What Underworld II Gets Right
1:01:58 Final Thoughts
1:06:30 Underworld Descendant
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Special thanks to Bondsc and praecorloth from the Rat Tower Discord for modding a game file to my liking so I could play this game at all. Speaking of @rattowergames , you should absolutely go wishlist his upcoming RPG called Monomyth that’s heavily inspired by the Ultima Underworld games among others and promises a fairly detailed and hardcore RPG experience that you can play the demo for now!
Special thanks to Sir Cabirus’ walkthrough for this game as well that keep me going even when the going got tough (most of the time anyway).
Much love to the guys who recorded their playthroughs and helped me finish my review: @Kikoskia and @GHostLPs . Entertaining and immensely helpful, thanks!
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• Ultima Underworld II :... @barbarianbros - MT32 Soundtrack
@symphonic remakes - symphonic soundtrack
Resources:
Special thanks to Sir Cabirus’ walkthrough for this game as well that keep me going even when the going got tough (most of the time anyway).
Much love to the guys who recorded their playthroughs and helped me finish my review: @Kikoskia and @GHostLPs . Entertaining and immensely helpful, thanks!
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• Ultima Underworld II :... @barbarianbros - MT32 Soundtrack
@symphonic remakes - symphonic soundtrack
www.mallo.co.uk/ultima/church...
• The Alternate Reality ... - @alternatereality3298
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• Dark Souls 2 Part 8!!!... - @ElectricSquidEntertainment
• Underworld Ascendant O... @gametrailers
DavidFerencik / Shutterstock.com- Magic the Gathering photo
• 'Underworld Overlord' ... - @far out dude - Underworld Overlord
• Underworld Ascendant G... - @ikurayGaming
• Ultima Underworld II -... - GhostLPs Scintillus puzzles
• The Tomb of Horrors - ... - Tomb of Horrors model @WylochsArmory
• Morrowind in a nutshell -@razorel6238 
Игры
Just wanted to add a note about the stone in the Shrine of Spirituality:
You do not need to fly up and use a portal spell to get it. The 'proper' way to get that stone is far more clever.
Remember those dream herbs? Remember how they can make you appear in the Shrine of Spirituality when you rest?
You can't actually put the stone in your inventory during a dream... but you CAN throw it through the bars. And it'll still be there, outside the bars, when you enter the Ethereal Void physically.
I thought this was one of the best puzzles in the game, to be quite honest.
Yeahhh! I wondered in retrospect if that was the case, as Id slept after eating the herbs for health and been transported to the top. Good catch!
I miss Ultima Underworld style gaming so much. There barely is anything like it out there, to this day. It's so unique.
It is! I feel like games these days often cater too much to whats immediately rewarding and placating, and not in figuring things out over time and growing in appreciation over time, both things requiring depth, complexity, and craftmanship.
yeah they all uw/uw2/ss were really something else as an experience.
daggerfall doesn't quite get there(I blame the algorithmic generation), morrowind gave some of the feel when it was new, it wasn't just a game it was a world like ultima underworld.
@lasskinn474 Morrowind is my favorite game ever so im with ya there. Yeah going back to these places is just mesmerizing.
I really wish both games got remade. They've not aged well.
Only Arx Fatalis comes close to the atmosphere.
Yeah! Man, if i can ever figure Arx out, ill get into it
Seeing people play this game without the mouse look mod in 2023 is insane. Combat and exploration feels so much better when you can just move the view with the mouse directly. If anyone is thinking of trying this game out, don't be afraid to patch the game to get a modern control scheme and take full advantage of this game's 3D engine.
If there was an easy way to have both mouselook and be able to interact with the menus, then I would embrace mouselook no problem. The fact that I have to click outside the play window to deactivate the mouselook so I can then click around on the menus with my cursor is absolutely rancid to experience. Hence my WASD movement in game and mouse for all menus :)
@@HighFunctioningMedium The patch solves that problem as well. All menus and modes can be switched through with the keyboard and there's even a shortcut to toggle mouselook on or off when you really need to move the cursor. It's ~ right above Tab. It's super easy to access when you navigate with WASD. I switch between mouselook and the cursor quite frictionlessly in my playthrough honestly.
Thanks for the tip!
I didn’t even know there was such a mod. After getting used to the controls I found UU1 and 2 perfectly playable as is, but having mouselook sounds incredible.
@@HighFunctioningMediumIt has a key to toggle the mouselook on & off. RTFM.
I’ve been browsing for something to soothe my anxiety before bed and this popped up at the exact time, thank you sm
Youre very welcome, glad to be of service :)
Loving this happy to hear you're going to keep doing the Ultima series me and a buddy actually worked on this a very long time ago
Im glad! I got so invested in the whole Guardian arc that I'm willing to go back and struggle through some old isometric RPGs which are not usually my bread and butter. I feel like ive seen that video of yours. Lemme check!
@@HighFunctioningMedium Lucky for you Ultima VII and SI are easily the most accessible 2D installments aside from a few quibbles some may have with the way their inventories work. If you ever plan on playing VI however, make peace with the fact that you'll have a cumbersome interface to deal with.
Love your works
It's funny how different your first experience was to mine. Like, I never used the cornucopia, thinking it would run out of juice soon (and I'm a hoarder), but nevertheless I never ran out of food. I did sleep little though. I didn't have problems with the secret doors in the castle, but yeah the puzzle in anodunos was hard. The last gem, in the shrine, I solved in a completely different way, which is the way I thought most people did. I slept after eating the herbs, moved the gem close to the bars, then went through the void and reached out with the flight spell scroll, bypassing the need for the gate travel spell. Also, after you complete scintillus, isn't there a teleport that's unlocked which takes you to the end? About the gem, I think it has a large spoke, and that the facets in the map align with that spoke, so you can use that to choose which world to enter.
Few things would mention too. Did you know there's completely inaccessible rooms in this game that can only be seen with that "eagle eye" spell or something, and which can only be accessed with gate travel? Thankfully they don't contain anything super good.
There's also, IIRC, only one instance of a false floor in the scintillus academy vault containing a powerful axe and some other good items. That stumped me completely and I had to resort to a walkthrough.
Anyway, nice review. You explained well your thoughts and feelings. I was also disappointed in DS2 for similar feelings, and understand the comparison to UW2
Yknow whats interesting? I could feel that brewing in the back of my mind as I edited "is there any way to eat herbs, sleep, and be transported all the way to the Shrine again and solve the puzzle that way?" Maybe there's some way they gated that so its not possible but that seemed like such an Underworld move to allow for. Yeah, man, I try to be face up about why I didn't get something. Way too few people acknowledge their own shortcomings when playing and it makes it seem like there's some inescapable one size fits all playthrough we're supposedly all referencing, making the content samey, when we know there's more going on here than usual. Specificity and getting to the motivation of developer and player is really important in being honest about why I feel justified in my review but also gives you all enough info to judge whether I'm full of shit or not. Think that's the best way.
If I remember correctly you can consume dreamweed, snatch the gem, place it close to those stone bars and then retrieve it outside of dream sequence by using either fly spell or telekinesis.
Omgggg, thats so cool! I wondered when i went there by accident earlier if it was possible to pregame the endgame at all!
Kinda funny you mention DS2 because while it’s more “challenging” to the player it’s also more “fair” as well with things like: Life Gems, Permamently de-spawnable enemies, more build variety, baked in fast travel from the get go, more non-linear choices in terms of progression with how Majula is laid out.
It definitely has its “moments” that DS1 didn’t have like adaptability & hitbox jank but I overall appreciated DS2 more due to the increased player choice and respect towards variability that the game offered.
Yeah! I hear that a lot. I know im not great at these but there were some really cheap choices that Ds2 makes the acknowledge hard af grind feel like robbery enough times where it feels vindictive. That being said, I do plan to return to it one day. Apparently all the cool shit like the dragon area when you warp back in time and all that is just beyond where I was!
Minor thing, I'll just add that you can farm humanity with enough item discovery. I've seen comparisons that Elden Ring is basically DS 2 2 and as a fairly big souls fan I'd say that's apt. I'd actually argue DS2 is a great beginner entry point for the series due to the increased healing items and disconnected storyline
If you are worried about food, trade with the goblins in the cave above the backrock gem for a fishing rod. That way you don't even have to worry about the mani rune for the create food spell.
Also, unlike the previous game, a paladin is analagous statwise to your druid from the first game. It has the higher intelligence and strength that makes your game much easier if you are not adept.
No kidding! Dang. Its sad i missed out but its also awesome all these details exist but aren't made so obvious that everyones playthrough is the same
22:21 The cornucopia item is nice, but there's always the "Create food" spell which is in the 1st circle of magic. Once you have the runes (In Mani Yelm), which are on level 1 and level 2 of the castle, your food problems are basically over.
Im so bad at magic in these games! I did use it a lot more but was also incentivized more to do so, which is a good place to be design wise. Yknow whats weird? I looked up the runes needed to make food and seems as if i was missing one. Bad luck Chuck over here
I do feel like Ultima would be a prime candidate for some sort of re-imagining (we'll just not engage with the fact that EA owns the IP).
There's some legitimately great and intelligent storytelling, which ultimately doesn't end up being paid off in the final arc.
I feel like the original trilogy, with a bump up in presentation and a bit of work done to better integrate those narratives into the more ambitious stories from the later games, could be a legitimately refreshing take on the genre, retaining the science fiction elements and updating the quests to make them less arbitrary.
The second arc is probably the best executed overall, so the most valuable thing that could be done with those games is to address the interface and polish up the overall presentation, though it could be worth retrospectively including the virtues into the earlier stories (especially given how morally dubious the actions you need to perform in service to Lord British actually are. The guy is a terrible despot and a hypocrite and it would be worth being more explicit about him being the lesser of various evils)
The Guardian trilogy is probably the one that would need the most work. It's clear that The Guardian is meant to be a dark counterpart to the player: basically representing a version of the player who took the option to kill everyone in the world and set off to do the same across the multiverse, but the games themselves fall apart after his introduction (coincidentally when EA bought the developer). I'd maybe try and give him a bit more setup (maybe Mondane and his work could be expanded on to demonstrate some sort of understanding that The Guardian is coming - so he has some understanding of the fact that he exists within a simulation and his goals are to prevent beings like the player, who have the ability to destroy the world and wouldn't actually think twice about it, from threatening the stability of that system. In this interpretation, Exodus' purpose is to ensure that the status quo of the world is preserved, reflecting how the world fundamentally changes in the games after that point and how the world is increasingly infiltrated by extradimensional beings in addition to the player. Exodus is intended to manipulate the simulation in order to seal it off and prevent intrusions - a kind of exodus from the network. I'm going a bit 4th wall with this, but it's pretty much in line with the established idea that the player character is from our universe and sometimes enters the world shortly after using a PC).
Having done the work to foreshadow The Guardian I feel like the biggest issue is the ending to the series. The Guardian really doesn't do anything after conquering Britannia, despite his constant gloating. I love Pagan conceptually, but they didn't build on its ending. The player literally destroyed an entire universe so that they could try and save Britannia and arrived too late. That's a really interesting idea but it was completely ignored.
Damnn...! I was really hoping the Guardian arc would turn into something sweet. Shoot. Ill still play em but have to prepare to be underwhelmed, sounds like.
Also I like a lot of your ideas for reimaginings. I do think the plots are intricate enough with solid beats to work in a modern game. When I end up doing an Underworld Ascendant video, Ill be sure to rep some of your ideas!
Regarding Underworld Ascendant you mentioned: I was a huge UUW fan, played the first part several times, the second part...twice, I think. And really, just wanted more of the same. I was one of the backers back then, and it was bizarre to see how bad it was. Barely a semblance of story, hardly any NPCs, and of all things it introduced instanced grinding to get resources or faction point nonsense. And really, once you have all these easy "resource generators", it stops, at the core, the experience from being what I wanted: A "dungeon survival game" where most resources are finite. There just didn't seem to be any purpose to what you're doing in the game, other than...kill stuff because it's there.
As simple and shallow as UUW's story was, it still served as a good enough motivation and led you through the game, and it's bizarre to me all those experienced people involved didn't see that.
Wow, that's one of the most detailed and nitty gritty explanations I've seen of why it's so bad and I've seen plenty similar. What's so fascinating as someone who's yet to play it is how uniform people's dissatisfaction is with it and how you can just feel that they're not overdoing it or exaggerating to get back at a game. It genuinely seems to be that fundamentally off
Youre my new favourite reviewer. Your voice, style, editing and choice of games combines it all in such a great mix of a review that makes me excited for more. Hope you keep blowing up and keep at it!
Wow! That makes me feel great! Im so happy to be making a positive impact! I still feel like ive got so much room to grow and anxious to get there!
Really great video, definitely going through the rest of your channel! Keep up the great work man!
Thank you so much! Ill be going through your content catalogue soon enough as well!
@@HighFunctioningMedium Oh thank you so much too! Deeply appreciated!
in defence of uu2, i thought it was better in every way than uu1. it got rid of the game-breaking inventory bug that could make uu1 unwinnable, and i thought it had much less vital items to carry at any one time, meaning you could theoretically consider other warrior classes at the start as opposed to 'who can carry the most'. to someone who's never played them, i would say sure, it may be a bit frustrating in places, but if you buy both of them from gog for pennies, play them with sir cabirus' excellent walkthrough and discover everything, they're an absolute blast. sure it may spoil the challenge, but it is over 30yrs old and i prefer having fun for one month than being frustrated for a year!
when i completed uu1 i said 'phew, that was fun, but glad its over!'
when i completed uu2 i said 'that was fun but i think i can do better' and started it again. and i did, and had more fun.
I can totally see that. Uu1 had some hella moon logic to finding the talismans but i appreciated the simplicity. And yeah i always smooth over rough bits in old games w walthroughs, no shame. I wore out Cabirus over the course of playing both!
This is a really really great game - played it when it came out - and it was an amazing experience. No internet help or walkthru - u had figure everything out yourself - took me months. And to top it all - it used to crash quite often - I think it was soundcard issue - never figured it out. I think being able to add map comments made it a real adventure experience - essential as you got further into the game. The music still haunts me to this day!
My hat off to you! I cant imagine the good ole days of no guides when youre stuck!
@@HighFunctioningMedium Thanks for the Video and info btw - some top work there - info from Church e.t.c.. One thing to realize as well is that in dosbox it runs really fast - back in the day on a 386/25 it ran dog slooow - so some of the issue you had - i.e. selecting the face on the transport gem/rock didn't happen at that slow speed.
Just now seeing this. So did the light travel around the gem at all in the old one?
it did - I think it was really really slow and I think it would alternate between all the worlds you had visited e.t.c.@@HighFunctioningMedium
Happy to see another video by you! ❤️
Aw thanks! Glad to be of service!
It was a good idea and much appreciated to do a play by play of this game. Since it's been decades since I played it, I'd forgotten all the details but they came back to me as I watched the video. My experience with playing it at the time was that it was incredibly ambitious and mostly in a good way. I found the worlds and their stories ti be very engaging and immersive, and even all the puzzles I saw as more of a challenge than an annoyance. Taloros I found especially memorable, just masterclass worldbuilding. I will however agree that there is too little handholding for the last part of the game. While you can see and almost appreciate that they were deliberately making it not obvious they overdid it somewhat. A few more ways to get hints if you got stuck would have been much appreciated. But overall it's definitely one if the best games that I've played and this review only affirms that for me.
That's awesome you got out of it exactly what I'd hoped. I figure most people will be nostalgically looking for content on Ultima Underworld anyway so the play by play will be a nice trip down memory lane vs a spoiler filled romp most will skip. And even most newbies will probably not play the game anyway, despite my recommendation ;) I'm glad you had a good time!
Played this as a teen. Falls into the category of: you had to be there. UU, Wolfenstein and Doom made the FP gaming world
I can only imagine. I was 3 or 4 when this came out so certainly before my time but I really like reaching back in time and trying to immerse myself in the mentality of that era. It's also really exciting to see these games' fundamental building blocks providing the foundation for generations thereafter. In a lot of ways, I feel like these guys outdid themselves and we've only been inching forward ever so slightly since with just tech upgrades...!
@@HighFunctioningMedium Exactly. For me it was just an era where each game got better and better. Especially compared to what came before. If you've never seen a "3D" fp game and suddenly you're walking through a 'real' world, well, I could forgive minor design quibbles. I mean, they were literally making it up as they went.
So when old boomers like me complain about modern games, it mainly as compared to what came before. Obviously many games today are amazing, they've just plateaued at least since the mid 2010s. Where is all that technology going? Its not being used to push the evelope of game development. Heck, even Starfield is just lots of levels stitched together. Even NMS had a persistent universe.
Neways, thanks for putting this together! Maybe someone will be inspired.
Great video dude I really enjoyed it much luke the first underworld video. It's cool to learn more about these games. Keep up the great work as always my homie 😎
Thanks so much, buddy. Youre always a big encouragement!
@@HighFunctioningMedium I try my man 😁
You make enjoyable vidya that I enjoy, thanks!
Im so very glad :)
Still watching the video and enjoying your shared experience a lot, but just wanted to mention something about the main Blackrock Gem that is used to teleport you to other worlds. You don't really need to mark the worlds with items on the ground, but just use your compass to figure out which direction leads to which world, then write that down in/on a notepad or something.
Glad it resonates with you! Well, if there were just cardinal directions on the st one that'd be easier but you've got as many as three different stones visible when you're facing it
@@HighFunctioningMedium Yes, I watch both this and your UW 1 video, enjoyed them a lot! As for the blackrock, it does, 8 worlds corresponding to 8 directions - the main 4 ones (N, S, E and W) and the ones in between (NE, SE, SW and NW). I guess it's not so intuitive at first look though, so it's easy to miss.
I love that UW2 ties more directly into the broader Ultima lore, and as a kid I really enjoyed how much more expansive the world is, but as an adult I do tend to agree that it goes too big. The strength of the original Underworld game was that claustrophobic feeling, and that all the little communities with the Abyss felt organic and very well tied together. This game's constant backtracking and criss-crossing storyline threads give it an overall feeling of being bloated a lot less focused. Again, this is a shame, because mechanically the game is still great, and I appreciate that the game window is a little bigger this time too.
Yes! More real estate to play in was a great touch. Im really excited to play the mainline Ultimas and see how the Guardians arc ends!
@@HighFunctioningMedium Bill Johnson (with a pedigree in horror films, I believe he was famously Leatherface in a whole bunch of Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequels) was the perfect sarcastic voice for the Avatar's nemesis. Him mocking me for my gameplay decisions throughout Ultima 7 is still something I remember 30 years later. 🤣
Nooo kidding. What a varied career he's had!
Just finished Ultima Underworld 1 today. Restarted 4 times. The 4th one I finally committed. Took 11 hours and 23 mins to beat. Loved it but really wanted it to just end by the time I got all 8 talismans.
Was going to immediately jump into UW2, but now I think I might not even touch it. I know it improves on things, but it seems like if you played UW1 you have basically beaten the second.
Also, I hate back tracking and gid knows there was already enough of it in UW1.
I think I'll move on to System Shock. I used guides prematurely on UW1 before giving a really good try. I am going into System Shock almost completely blind and planning to figure out as much as I can without looking anything up.
Thanks for the great review allowing me to safely skip this game. Look forward to your next review (already watched the Red Fall one).
Yeah, UU2 is def taxing, even for rpg savants. Not miserable and just pop a guide on to get you through but I figured going through the whole game satisfy those who want a convenient voyeuristic experience so Im glad that helped. Yeah Im going sequentially retro games wise so prob doing Myst next but System Shock will be soon! Thanks for watching, I really appreciate ya!
I feel like you’d get the most out of UU2 if you’ve already played some of the mainline Ultimas, particularly VII Part 1, as UU2 takes place immediately afterwards. UU2 is a great game, but it demands a lot from the player, and is a bit too large for its own good.
System Shock is amazing though and I think everyone who enjoys immersive sims should play it. Be prepared to backtrack a lot, but navigation is much easier than in UU2 because the “dungeon” isn’t as vast in scope. Also I recommend that you take notes so you can easily keep track of objectives.
No you haven't. It builds on everything from the first to such a mind-blowing degree that, assuming you liked the first, you’d be depriving yourself & doing yourself a disservice to not enjoy its splendor.
One of the best games ever made
It wasn't my favorite thing to play but I love what it stands for. Truly ambitious and memorable!
Please do a retro on Ultima 7 at some point. Still one of my all time favourite games. At least, the memory of it is; every time I've tried to go back and play it it's never been the same as when I poured months into it in 1992 :)
Definitely! It wont be anytime soon as Ive got a good backlog of projects in queue and itll be a monster project but I will do all the Ultimas one day :)
Also worth noting Ultima 7 is one of if not Raphael Colantonios fav game (hes a former creative director at Arkane Studios)
Ultima Underwolrd is the antithesis of Dark Souls.
Do tell
@@HighFunctioningMediumWell, first of all, it doesn’t punish every bad decision.
Ultima Underworld is 🔥😊
Yassssss. Games are sweet. They piss me off sometimes but theyre so charming
I far prefer UW2 to UW, owning both in the box & having beaten both on a 486 in the 90s. The additions all work in its favor, not against. If you manage to snag the jeweled sword of unsurpassed damage from the Reaper at that point, you'll have the best sword in the game until the Sword of Stone Strike. It makes for a _far_ easier playthrough.
I gotcha! Def seems like a "gear makes the playthrough" kind of game.
I'm a retro gaming newbie! Tell me more!
Im getting there! Im making through these 90s bigwigs slowly but surely
35:50 Hey, I think you accidentally put a Windows 95/98 maze screensaver in the video instead of UU2 footage.
Amazing review, even though I love Dark Souls 2.
Haha! Good reference, I do remember having that screensaver. Thanks, I appreciate ya. Yeah one of these days I need to go back and finish Dark Souls 2
Hmm, it's been, like, 30 years since I played this. But I remember in my playthrough, I had to kill the creatures keeping Killorn Keep flying, which killed everyone inside. I don't remember why I thought I needed to do it to proceed, and it doesn't seem like you had to do it in your playthrough.
Yes! It's even in the walkthroughs to not do that early on or you'll screw up your game as it won't be available for the endgame. Now that you mention it though, I do kinda feel like I've seen someone kill those brain guys on their way out of that area for the last time, which was very climactic XD
@@HighFunctioningMedium That wasn't my experience, I remember running to the portal as the keep fell. But afterwards, I could still go back through the gem, and the keep was still there, but everyone was dead.
I remember playing this for weeks and to have a bug that near to the end... I just stuck at one world which I cannot find the gem or something.. Then I got lazy to restart again.. but very happy with the game
Yeah hard stops for bugs almost no one knows about is so hard to swallow :/
You should review Arx Fatalis, the successor to UW. I played and got to the part with the snake ladies and the script got stuck...I ran around for the next 4 hours trying to figure out how to activate the next linear story event, but nothing would activate and I gave up and never played again. From the parts I did play, it was pretty fun.
Ive tried Arx Fatalis, took hours to get widescreen to work then couldnt get the spell system to work. Ill be back for it but man is it a clunkfest so far. Makes everything basic so difficult
Wonderful insight on the game for someone with no prior knowledge, I also have to sing to myself while playing games too LOL
Thats a very kind compliment! I found it so funny id been awkwardly singing to myself and hadnt realized my mic was left on, I was like "i gotta embarrass myself like i did in my Ultima Underworld intro" ;)
Never finished UUW2 and still remember the gem to move to different worlds to be a pain.
With many items being useless in an CRPG that has puzzles, actually something I miss in most "modern" "consolized" RPGs, is bad. Having to pick up everything as you might or might not need it (and to reduce backtracking), while also featuring a limited carrying weight, is annoying. I still remember hording everything that wasn't nailed down in my room at Castle British.
The limited amounts of enemies to level the character also made me kill the goblins myself instead of letting the troll do it.
Weren't there also multiple ways to softlock you?
PS: Underworld Ascendant still enrages me to this very day. The tech demos felt more advanced then the "finished" game...
New games funnel you so intently and make the artifice of areas so obvious, while old games just forced you to constantly guess at what was important. I don't like either honestly. It's kind of the nirvana of gaming that a happy medium is found between the two extremes. It's really hard and very specific so I understand why people don't want to commit to making it work. Just like it's hard to learn a bunch of new editing tricks for a video and half of your audience might lightly grin at something you did that took you 10 hrs to make or something. Its like "is the payoff worth the input?"
Man, Ascendant cant catch a break. I've actually been interested in firing it up and trying to see what it's about. I've not heard a single good thing about it.
@@HighFunctioningMedium Yeah, old games often had convoluted puzzles, but at least they had any.
Nowadays we get something like Witcher 3 and it's "Witcher Sense", trivializing any possible puzzle from the get-go. For the latter I always asked myself what the point is, if you simply have to follow red tracks of clouds without needing to use your brain.
Word. There has to be a happy medium. We need less scale and more craftmanship on a granular level. Too many shallow games out there, especially open world
Good under-your-breath Buckley.
;) yeah i've got songs i listen to when i edit that forever connect the two, that being one of them with this project
@@HighFunctioningMedium If I remember correctly the music didn’t work on my original Ultima Underworld game, so I played it all (high school age) with Al DiMeola’a Kiss My Axe album in the background, and my memory has forever fused the two :)
7:33 I’m not sure that was even in the Top 10 weirdest scenes in that movie.
(Troll 2, before anyone asks. And no, seeing Troll 1 is not a prerequisite for seeing 2 in any way whatsoever.)
You get it! I never get tired of that movie. End to end lightning in a bottle insanity XD
Fantastic video! This was so entertaining! Love your content!
:) thanks so very much for checking it out and for encouraging me!
Good thorough review! Checked out our old review for the series and past me definitely hit on a lot of the same points for UUW2. It's a creaky old grind in this day and age, but still has a lot to redeem it. I think UUW2 is best experienced on Easy with a walkthrough - still a 30 hour experience even with those things helping out.
Also, Shitty Indiana Jones Hogwarts 🤣😝
I can finally finish your video now that Ive played them!! Absolutely, games dense and kinda particular about how to go forward. I make mention of walkthroughs plenty cuz im not gonna feign some knowledge i dont have or deny what i think is pretty obvious about older games: they could be really obtuse. Haha i debated changing the name from Shitty Indiana Jones Hogwarts cuz we were all clutching our pearls about new monetization rules but decided to let it rip after i said the fuckword about forty times in Alone no problems
Nice thumbnail bro 😎😎😎
Youre a freaking wizard, dude. Thanks for your great help in that area!
cool video. how about the game that was supposed to be ultima underworld 3, Arx Fatalis?
One day! Had a rough time the first time I tried and havent been back but I do want to finish it
One day! Had a rough time the first time I tried and havent been back but I do want to finish it
One day! Had a rough time the first time I tried and havent been back but I do want to finish it
oh gee, you covered blake stone, alone in the dark and now ultima underworld?
you reallyy covering the games left behind by the "classics" community
can't wait for the eventual pie in the sky engine retrospective
Im trying! Had no idea what that is till now. What an intriguing thought....!
@@HighFunctioningMedium from my own searching a while back, which could be wrong, it's basically like a more budget version of the build engine and just as easy to work with for amateur devs
it also wasn't a v good engine but I think it's a nice, often forgotten piece in PC gaming
@@Minority119 its very intriguing. Would make a really fun medley kind of video. Thanks for introducing me to that!
Anyone feel the ip holder should not be able to be IP Hoarders? I think if nothing is done with an IP for 20 years they should lose the rights that IP are at most have to sell , if they do not wish to make a game in order to uphold the IP such as we see in film. I just wish we could see loved IPs used witch are still locked away forever 20 30 even 40 years later.
Maybe each is different but it seems that some IPs Ive seen have some upkeep cost to re up them. But apparently not with some or we could see Condemned 3, No One Lives Forever 3, etc. Def needs to be some way to free these up if no ones gonna doing anything productive with them
Ds2 was maded by different people. That why is different.
Sure, thats not lost on me, but that doesnt suddenly make me like the changes ;)
You got a great voice to fall asleep too.. except for when you crank the audio level for a one word meme...
I think I got these pretty balanced but regardless, there will be less of them in the future, especially in long retrospectives as I've heard feedback they're a little jarring to tone/flow and like you say, plenty of folks like listening to them while winding down so I'll be more conscious of that going forward. Thanks very much for letting me know what did and didn't work for you
Wow, Jeff Buckley and Alternate Reality mentioned in the same video?! And all in the first 5 minutes? Incredible!
Yessir! I try to inject my specific taste in there in case its shared by other people ;)
"This Video is Unavailable" :(
No way! Are you coming to it from Discord?
naisu
I now know what naisu means ;)
I think if games get too big we almost get struck with choice paralysis, thus feeling overwhelmed. I had the same problem with Dishonored 2. Loved the game, but it was exhausting to play.
Yeah, being spoiled with overchoice can be just as ruinous to fun as playing something bad. Funny you mentioned Dishonored 2. I just replayed all of them as research for an upcoming video on Deathloop. Arkane grows on me but always keeps me at a distance somehow, despite loving their ingredients
It's intended to allow YOU, the player, to decide. If that decision making is difficult for you, I recommend against ANY game from Warren Spector as choice & player agency is his calling card. Hence why the genre is called an "immersive sim".
@@NinjaRunningWild I play mostly immersive sims, not the issue.
Bigger is always better.
That's not what she sai--wait, that may have been to soften the blow
1:11:00
As soon you startet talking about what dream team thath "underworld3" had i knew that this game floppt and was not surprised afterwards
And i think if theese 6 people would have brought together 6 jung people and "mentored" them it could have prop be a big banger like system shock and the like btw did not even know descendant even existed
Right? Superteams rarely rock which is just not fair! Yeah Ive been super tempted to play it and rip the bandaid off. I still havent found a single defender for it
@@HighFunctioningMedium
Its not fair well what is fair in the world fairness is a konzept of human construcktion and not a cosmic one
i think its because the tech and time allways advanced and thy be a bit stuck in the past what is quite normal
Young people rarley think about the past cuz thy barley had any while old people are the oposide cuz thy have barley a future left
Theres a reason jackey chan got trasht around by old masters and now trasht jung kids around as master
And about underworld 3 one good way that i can think of would be get a buddy and make a drinking game or some sort out of it
It makes a boring trash expirience quite a fun one
The last game i played like that was a racing game with a horrible rubberbanding
The game was no fun but the rest was
But I don't want to be a pie!
Xd
how do you have so few views :/
Hey, we all gotta start somewhere. Alone in the Dark went off for nearly 100k views in a month so i cant complain!
Im playing this game now and right now i just gave up, i reach a part where you find a piramid that you have to colour, i dindt know so i just completed the world, but now discover that you have to jump around; i cant take any of this bulshit animore
Ngl, this game will mess you up. Old school design could be barbaric. Walkthroughs are essential, no shame
Definitely not the ultima that aged the best in the bunch. I think the engine did a great job for showcasing the stygian abyss. But attempting to go beyond that led to some rather silly choices. Personally the mages vault, the computer world and the abyss are areas that highlight the limitations of the engine. I think using all the assets of a the same colors as the rooms in the void is probably the worse offender. But then again without the ability to make custom assets for these rooms, they had no choice.
Lastly and this isn't particular to the UW2 game, but perhaps a recurring thing to the Ultima series. To me the combat always felt like I'm driving a car but I don't have anything to display information about the car. Such as how many miles have I travelled, how fast am I going? Apart your own health and mana, there is no way to gage the efficacy of weapons, or even worse in my opinion, whether magical weapons beat better 'normal' weapons. (magical dagger vs sword, magical handaxe vs battle axe, etc.)
You make great observations. Im amazed at how much people will tell me is going on underneath the hood and its like "the games not even that complicated, why wouldnt that just be face up/explained?" The magic system being rather elusive too is a a strange choice, etc. Like obviously we are spoiled rotten by almost pedantic handholding now but youd think UU would be a little more interested in revealing itself
Yes there is. You see blood splatters of according size & number (critical hit is two large ones) & the eyes show you the enemy’s health.
@@HighFunctioningMediumBecause games back then didn’t hold your hand, we could handle that, & could deduce from observation. If you can’t I’d say that’s a PEBCAK problem more-so than a game problem. Maybe RPGs where everything isn’t ostensible just aren’t for you.
@@NinjaRunningWild Maybe trying to have a discussion about games isn't for you? I can't believe you went for "If you can't figure it out maybe RPGS where everything isn't ostensible just aren't for you."
So you can't point out that a game has a somewhat blackbox approach to weapon stats and damage, without coming across as someone who can't deal with that stuff? Slow your roll dude. The UW & Ultima games are some of my favorite games. Staple from my childhood/adolescence.
I can still like the game while pointing out some of it's flaws. And it's not like weapon stats are this super casual gameplay mechanic. It just makes making gear choices easier. And in this case, what I was trying to underline is that with zero weapon stats loot becomes somewhat not as exciting. I have two magical weapons, can't really tell which one does more damage. (Mind you it could be that they do close to the same damage) But those are things l personally don't really see value in the game.
Could be and I wont pretend I dont miss stuff in these old games but granular/unique feedback isnt something gaming in general has taught us for the last 25 years or more really. That to say, its at least empathizable why some of this stuff might fly under the radar.
Working on Myst video which has a lot of the same disconnects in it, many of which the creators realize. Some of this more hardcore, you just gotta figure it out stuff should just be left alone as the standard back then and its not its fault we're spoiled now, but good to also be aware that the creators are critical of their stuff here too and that defensible game design ages well, they knew that, and these games doesn't need apologizing for over and over as if we cant both negatively critique and respect them without losing our cred
Really enjoyed the video except for the annoying real world video inserts.
Why do creators do this.
It ruins a perfectly good video with irrelevant nonsense.
It's not clever and it's not funny.
I was a big Ultima fan back in the day and played all the games including both Underworlds.
In fact, i built my first PC specifically to play UW1, on a monochrome monitor, by the way. A 386sx 25mhz with 40mb Hard Drive.
Brilliant times.
Thanks for the feedback! I do far less of those inserts these days so def something I'm edging away from.
I did not enjoy my experience with Underworld 2. I much prefer the first game. It felt so much more cohesive and immersive. Underworld 2 felt like a broken mess and I did not have the same drive to keep exploring, but I did finish it.
2 def sort of grabs you by the shoulders and goes "you got what it takes??" Theres a simplicity and purity in the first one that the 2nd one (self admittedly by the devs) has gone away from. So while its conceptually exciting and more diverse, its also more complicated and arbitrary than ever before